Zoimorphisits School of Magic

The Zoimorph School of Magic is a school of magic specialized in altering and creating variants of life, sometimes referred to as Arcanaeugenics.

Zoimorphic School of Magic

The Zoimorphic school of magic is focused on the alteration, manipulation and creation of life forms. Practitioners do not refer to themselves as thus - terms such as Biomancer, Life wizard, or Seekers of Perfection are far more common.

Admission

Potential Zoimorphicists are skilled magicians who have an interest with tinkering with life. Often the power-hungry in search for new minions may begin to travel this path. It is not one to take lightly as the time and effort required to make any real progress is quite high. Many projects are very long term and taken on by the school as a whole.

Generally a given school of Zoimorphicists will have a very specific goal for their projects - creating life forms to exploit dangerous or unique environments, weapons of war, improving humanity, etc. Only those sympathetic to that goal would be considered for entry. Most societies persecute Zoimorphicists and the schools are very secretive. One notable exception is that of the The Rephatians

Practice

The main procedures conducted by Zoimorphicists are extensive rituals performed on creatures to change their current attributes, making the changes inheritable, and to speed the process along.

Projects take large amounts of time unless great risks in terms of subject mortality are taken.

History

This school has arisen independently in numerous cultures, sometimes as offshoots from Druidic or Animistic practice, other time as the results of applying magic to improving agriculture. In other cases, the simple rituals of shamans and midwives may slowly evolve over time into the greater rituals. One could consider the low level spells themselves as the School of Midwifery.

Perhaps the greatest practitioners are The Rephatians who almost exclusively apply their art to humanity itself and regularly imply the highest level rituals.

In many cultures this type of magic, with the exception of the Midwifery spells, is viewed with hostility comparable to necromancy and so is generally practiced in secret.

There are rumors of powerful artifacts of magic that greatly improve success rates of the Zoimorphic rituals, but no concrete information on these has yet been found.

This school of magic is not well suited for adventurers due to the long duration required to perform the rituals, and the potential for abuse. It is this potential abuse which makes this school a good source of conflict in a campaign, and allows evil secret societies, governments or other organizations to create the various minions to harass adventurers.

GMs will need to carefully adjudicate use of these spells - no alteration will come without some cost to the affected creature. Increased strength, for example would require added bulk or increase in metabolic rate.

Additional Ideas (4)

Low Level Enchantments

Unless otherwise specified, none of the listed spells are applicable to beings already born. All of the Mortality boosts are accumulative within the same pregnancy so generally changes are introduced slowly over many generations. Virtually any existing attribute can be adjusted. Addition of new Attributes is the domain of the higher level enchantments.

All of these spells are risky, so even if your magic system does not require a 'casting' roll or equivilent, these spells have a 5% chance of Exceptional Success, and a 5% chance of Exceptional Failure. In addition, all of these spells have casting times in the hours.

GMs can easily increase material costs, failure rates, etc, to keep the effects of these spells under control.

Sequences of rituals can be grouped into sequences allowing for repetition and refinement. In these cases, the difficulty of the individual rituals decreases as well as the level of mortality. However, no rituals can be added to the sequence, or all probabilites drop back to initial levels.

Dominate vs Recessive

Without delving deep into real-life biology, for the purposes of this school, any alteration which creates a Recessive Attribute requires both parents to be so altered for the progeny to gain the Attribute boost. If the Attribute is Dominate, then only one parent must have the Attribute.

In addition to these spells, the school makes use of the same array of spells as the School of Midwifery.

Mark Attribute - Long duration ritual 'Marks' an individual attribute or trait. Some attributes can be very hidden and this will affect the amount of time required for it to be 'Marked'. GM And player imagination are needed to define an attribute or trait.

Surpress Attribute - Decreases Expression of Marked attribute by 10% at cost of 10% Mortality rate increase. Exceptional Success results in this being a Dominate effect, Exceptional Failure results in the trait being increased by 10% with a 20% addition to mortality.

Induce Minor Mutation - Introduces into the subject a random minor mutation - for good , ill or neutral. Caster has no control over the form. Mutation is 20% fatal due to interference with vital function. Minor mutations are generally cosmetic or the preliminary appearance of some new capability. In that case, only 10% of the mutation's final form is added, requiring use of Boost Attribute to bring it into being over time.

The mid-level enchantments generally make minor changes to existing creatures - minor increases in size, attributes or even morphology changes (lengthing limbs, fusing toes, etc), and allow for extensive alteration of unborn lifeforms. Where possible, the spells act as thier 'Minor' counterparts with respect to already born beings, including chance of mortality.

Possibilities include any effect which is considered reasonably possible within Genetic Engineering in the future.

Greater Boost Attribute - Increases expression of Marked attribute by 20% at cost of 10% Mortality rate. Change can be made Dominate by doubling chance of mortality, or by applying to two successive generations.

Induce Major Mutation - Introduces into the subject a random Major mutation - for good , ill or neutral. Caster has no control over the form. Mutation increases mortality by 30%. Major mutations are generally quite significant but do not provide 'supernatural' powers.

Copy Attribute - Allows caster to copy an attribute from one lifeform to another. Expression in the recipent is not strong and will require multiple generations to strengthen to the level from the donar creature.

Graft - Caster can attach parts from one living being to another. Mortality for the recipient is 10 % for limbs, 30% for torsos, heads. Mortality for the 'donar' depends on what is removed, and how. This spell can be used to perform 'transplants' and there is no issue with rejection. Exceptional failure results in life-threating illness that requires powerful assistance to cure.

These are truly the rituals of legend! Creation of new creatures, or great changes to existing fall into this category. Effects not really considered plausible in Genetic Engineering, at least in the foreseeable future would qualify.

Accelerate Development - Speeds maturation of the subject by 400%. Learning and growth are all accelerated allowing beings to be brought to maturity quickly. The ritual must be successfully repeated to stop the acceleration as well, and only one ritual of either form may be attempted (successful or failed) per year. Additional attempts are 100% mortal.

Creation - An extremely expensive ritual that is the epitome of the art. The normal process of birthing beyond conception is skipped, and the new being is formed outside of the parents once the ritual is completed. The ritual must be started within a very short interval of conception.

Purge Deformity - All defects are removed if cast prior to birth. When used after birth will remove 1 birth deformity of any severity.

Meld Beings - Ritual causes two separate beings to be physically melded. If significant intelligence difference exist between the two beings, the greater intellect and personality remain, otherwise the result is a complete melding of the two intellects and personalities. Physically, the form will be as desired by the caster given any combination of the two initial life forms. The resulting form sterile except if the spell is an Exceptional success. If this ritual is recast upon a sterile being created by this ritual, it will remove the sterility. The resulting being is considered a separate species from it's parents subject to GM ruling.

Divide Being - This ritual can reverse the effect of the Meld Being enchantment, but can be cast such that the two beings produced are mixes of the initial two beings. If cast upon a unmodified singular being it creates two new beings.

The beings can either be near identical physically at half normal age and experience - essentially clones, or two 'incomplete' beings.

Generally such beings are mentally and emotionally fragmented depending on where the cleft occurs.
As an example of this effect, consider the Transporter accident with Captain Kirk on the original series Star Trek. He was divided into 'good' and 'evil' sides - one too passive and the other too aggressive to deal with reality. The actual effect is as desired by the GM for storytelling purposes.

After long work, an evil secret society has nearly completed creation of their ‘prefect’ soldier. At this point in time, the number of available stock is small, but they have greatly increased the reproductive rate though heavy use of magic and a powerful artifact. Their plan has just been discovered, and the PC’s are contacted to help stop the project by destroying the young breeding stock before they reach maturity. Of course the facility is well defended, including all sorts of failed experiments and hybrids. And to make it even less palatable for the PCs, the young strongly resemble young humans.

What follows was recorded in a Twin Journal by Theosian operatives, acting against the Tyresian empire.

“It tooks weeks of effort to discern the pattern to the supply ships. Once we had it figured out, we stowed ourselves into the cargo and used magic to conceal our presence. It is unfortunate that we could not conceal the smell, for the ship was loaded with offal, and what appears to have been executed prisoners. To what end this hideous cargo would be used, we did not know.”

“After a revolting journey which seemed too long - the ship took the most torturous path to the Island all the while with the cargo ‘ripening’ - we finally made landfall. We quickly found out what at least part of the cargo was for - the ships were being unloaded by dozens of walking dead. Fortunately our sorcerous guises held and we were able to slip onto the island proper, and establish our hidden base camp.”

“The island is covered with trees of the most excellent quality and surprising uniformity. The trees stand in straight lines like well-drilled soldiers. They stand tall enough to supply single masts for even the largest ships in our navy.”

“Our base camp we established with the greatest care in its concealment - the island is heavily populated by the walking dead , and the occasional heavily armed patrols of veteran soldiers made for many an anxious moment. The use of undead is atypical of our enemy - normally they are almost excessively above-board even in warfare. It shows a darker side we did not expect and highlights the importance that this island is held.”

“Over the next few days we carefully observed the tree farming aspect of their operation. I must use this word, no matter how odd to describe it, for never have I seen trees treated thus. What is also apparent is the trees grow at the most extraordinary rate ! We measured several near our camp and found that growth in the order of an inch a day was typical. This incredible rate indicates that this island could produce excellent masts in a few years as opposed to the generations it normally takes. It is little wonder that our enemy can always field more ships then us - we must find some way to either replicate their success or destroy this island!”

In an age of sail, one of the most important of resources is a source of tall, straight and strong trees for use as masts. Mastwood island is one such location.

As an important strategic resource, this large island is well away from any commonly travelled seaways, and is best located in areas which are fraught with natural hazards.

The first line of defence is secrecy - it is a closely guarded secret whose location is known by only a few trusted captains and is not written on any map outside of the Emperors personal vaults. (This is kept as an emergency should all of the captains perish in some calamity).

The second line of defence is it’s remoteness and location. It is located in a Naval Reserve Area where no civilian ships are allowed - violaters are liable to received the harshest punishment that the empire condones and ships are always seized. Naval ships are almost always nearby ‘on exercises’ though they are carefully controlled by the naval brass to avoid getting to close to the island.

The third line of defence is that the shoreline of the island has been carefully modified to deny easy landing for most of it’s circumference - rocks below the water line have been shaped and sharpened, beaches removed so that sheer rock faces meet the waves, etc. The only good landing point is covered by several powerful fortifications carved out of the natural rock and concealed both by plants and magic.

And of course, once ashore, one needs to deal with the Garrison, and the forces of the Necromancer of the Island.

Basically it is a well hidden and defended tree farm.

Plot Ideas

Bodysnatchers

While scraping up corpses to send to the island, Emperial operatives happened to send the corpse of someone Important by accident. Although the person in question was a member of the government, inquiries by the family as to the location of the body (for burial, resurrection, whatever) are unanswered, or worse, met with “You don’t want to go there.”) Friends and co-workers of the victim try to help, but are stonewalled by a vail of secrecy. The PCs are contacted to find out what happened to him, and their investigation may lead them to the island. What happens next, well..

The Secret Facility

A secret within a secret. The isolated, hidden nature of the island suites it well for a site of banned, or illegal experiments in areas some branches of the government would not like discovered. A separate branch of the government somehow found out about the facility and wants it shut down before it gets discovered by someone else and causes a scandal. The PC’s are contacted as independent operations to allow for their actions to be disavowed.

The Nurglur stand taller than a man, though they are stooped and hunched so their faces lie at a height similar to ours. Their bodies are slim with a muscled, wiry strenght and their feet are turned with three bird like talons.

The Nurglur stand taller than a man, though they are stooped and hunched so their faces lie at a height similar to ours. Their bodies are slim with a muscled, wiry strenght and their feet are turned with three bird like talons. Their legs, empowered by almost unnatural muscle can leap taller than a man in their race to hunt down their prey.
A Nurglur’s face is overlarge with the skin pulled taut, twisting their face oddly in an almost skull like grin.
The head is framed by shaggy black manes that runs down their backs. The eyes are deeply set, milk-white and without pupil. They have sharp, fanged teeth, behind which lies a long, black tounge that slides and caresses their razor toothed mouths.

Owt in shaden wodespan, dwelt the murdrus beaste. Stalkin `tween the leafen glade, preyin `pon the weake. Be fangs and claws for you, my ked, if sunfall shrouds you here.

Rudi- Asylum inmate

There are stories, but of course, there are always stories. Tales of whole villages that go missing, their folk never seen again. These missing towns are invariably located near cave systems, mines or holes leading underground. Never mind that crops fail, wars rage and sometimes people are forced to move on. No, it always has to be the Nurglur, carrying off whole villages underground. I say it’s all nonsense to frighten children into behaving. "Be still or I’ll give you to the Dark Ones," has hushed more than few unruly brats I’ll warrant.

Joseph- Town Elder

The Nurglur are simply a blasphemous cross-breeding between Men and Ape. They are a living proof that men should not manipulate nature by the means of science or magic.

Jonathan Nirvell- Witch Hunter

At first I thought it was a wolf, come to feed on the dead, but it was no child of winter. It hissed at me as I came near, but instead of running like any natural creature might, it gathered itself on it’s two feet and charged me. Yellowed incisors the size of daggers and dead eyes gleamed in my torch’s light as it rushed towards me. I barely had time to ready my sword before it was upon me. I fought heedless of my own life and even though I managed to cut it deeply several times it didn’t drop. Only when the cries of my friends rushing up the slope to help me were heard did it retreat into a hole in the ground. It left me a nasty wound in my left arm. The wound went bad so swiftly that I lost my arm.

Kastor Meyhg- Mercenary

Additional Information

The Nurglur are horrible creatures indeed, abominations of nature. Dwelling underground in deep caves, only at night do they creep out of their mouldering halls. They are scavengers by nature but hunt when nothing dead is to be found.
They are usually fairly cunning and malicious, but they’re prone to cowardice. They are confident only in large numbers, when they greatly outnumber their opponents. they’re obsequious to those they consider stronger than themselves. They have keen senses that are best suited to a nocturnal habitat. They can walk on two, but mostly scuttle along on four in underground tunnels.

History

A lifespan ago a forbidden school was created by a scientist and magician named Nur-Uglur. Nur was truly obsessed with the idea of creating a servitor race to mankind. Creatures that could be helpful in both labour and war. A being that could be commanded to do things that could lead to his own death, no questions asked. Only obedience.
The school was constructed underground, hidden from the authorities. Nur gathered many bright and mad minds, all bent on a common goal. Creating something that would help mankind into a new era.

They used magic, alchemy, surgery and cross-breeding.
History has it that Nur-Uglur used humans, apes and even eagles in his sinister experiments.
Exactly what, and how it happened no one knows. The authorities finally discovered the underground laboratory and compound only to discover the halls littered with broken bones.

Years later stories began to drift of a new menace. A creature ghastly and animalistic. Infesting the sewers and underground tunnels. Dragging children into the dark cellars of the earth. Raping and killing women, killing livestock and scavenging battlefields. But always escaping those seeking to prove it’s existence. The church quickly connected this new threat to Nur-Uglur and his blasphemous rituals and named the menace Nurglur.
Commonfolk and peasants did not distinguish between the Nurglur and other creatures of the night, earth and dark.
They received many names across the lands; The deep ones, Beastmen, Undermen and so on. To people it was all the same, underground terrors.

Behavior

The Nurglur beasts can get confused when they meet humans, somewhere in their brain is a spark of recognition.
Many different reactions are possible-

*They might get up on their hind legs trying to communicate, but they only drool when they try to speak, their tounge hanging out. When people respond with fear it angers them and provokes an attack.

*If hungry or desperate they attack humans on sight.

*They are known to kidnap men, women and children. Take the unfortunates to their lair where they will ultimately die of abuse, mistreatment and violence.

*If confronted with a larger number of humans they will flee or hide no matter what.

The conspiracy theory

Scholars that are aware of the connection between the Nurglur and the underground experiments so many decades ago are worry that the Nurglur might be a part of some mad masterplan for domination over the kingdom of men. Some go as far as claiming that there are Nurglur tunnels stretching over the entire continent, lairs under every city.

The Core

Nurglur are beings of experiments gone wrong, they have mixed instincts and are ultimately very confused beasts.
Violence and abductions are usually a result of mis-communication. Instincts switch on and of like burning matches, terror or sadness might transform into black rage only with a wrong gesture or look.

Plot Hooks

The Classic
The PC’s hear that coffins have been torn open and the contents eaten for some time now at the cemetery. No one has managed to catch the heretics. Guardsmen patrolling at night have gone missing. Even the mourge was attacked last night, leaving the place a mess. Only a gravedigger survived maddened by what he has witnessed.

The world saving
The PC’s chance upon the lost diary of Nur-Uglur. It tells the whole tragic story of a misfortunate race in detail. It even reveals means to end their existence.

Eons past, the progenitors of the Rephatians were driven from their homelands by the Giants of Stoneholt. Taking to the sea in a fleet of primitive, barely sea-worthy ships, they followed the islands of the Mhudarkin archipelago until they found the continent of Rephatia. Their flight had been largely unplanned, and though some food supplies and livestock were brought, they were all consumed prior to landing on Rephatia. As a result, they had little to restart their farming with and had to make do with the local flora and fauna.

The creatures native to Rephatia had never seen humans, and the other humanoid races of Rephatia were not major hunters. As a result, the local animals were easy prey to the invaders. The existing humanoid populations were forced into marginal territories or exterminated.

By the time the supply of easy food had been exhausted, the humans managed some agriculture with the native plants. This still left a great shortage of protein and so fishing and later cannibalism became commonplace.

As time passed, they developed a hierarchial caste system. Those of lower castes were subjugated and preyed upon by those of the higher castes. In an effort to address some of the problems the absence of suitable domesticatable animals caused, the mages among the Rephatians (obviously among the highest caste) began experiments with the lowest caste, breeding them and twisting them with magic.

Over the generations, the different castes have evolved in greatly different directions. Only the higher castes are still clearly human with little changes, but the lower castes of labourers, and food no longer appear normal.
Some, with the effects of magical intervention, are grotesque mockeries of the human form. They have been shaped into ‘Humanamorphs’ to fill all sorts of ecological niches on the island.

So now the land of the Rephatians is a nightmare kingdom.

The Rephatians were faced with many of the same issues as the tribes of the pacific islands, with some major differences. They are the instigator of the largest world-level plot in the campaign world of Neyathis. The cannibalistic, gene-modifying society is intended to provide a major enemy that is not supernatural in origin - no demons, undead or golems. Their weapons are the product of inhumanity to humanity.

Many ideas from this society and associated subs were inspired by:

Man After Man: An Anthropology of the Future,Dougal Dixon
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies is a 1997 book by Jared Diamond

I intend to add a lot more submissions linked to this society as time allows. Their great ships of Giant Bamboo. Their Beasts of War. The invasion of Nyathis, The Great Game and others.Stay tuned….

Click the eye icon on upper right for table of contents ---------------------------------------------------------->

This location is intended as an alternative lair for nature-oriented entities rather then a castle of stone.

The actual details of the Defending Force and what lies in the center compound I am opening up for submissions! In the Main Complex section I outline a couple of ideas, but I would like to see what others could see placed here!

Overview

The Fortress is a region encompassing a large, dangerous forest, a wide lake and a subtly fortified island.

Most of the defenses are designed to passively slow or stop the progress of an invading army. A party of PC’s, resourceful and lightly encumbered, are much more likely to penetrate the defences then large masses of soldiers.

All of the defences are selected with an eye towards avoiding use of either undead or demonic powers, neither of which are suitable for a nature-oriented location. Similarly, few powerful magics are actively employed. Though some features may have required significant effort and magic to put in place, most features are ‘natural’ and nearly maintenance free.

The defence of the Unseen Fortress is organized into three major bands - Outer (The aforementioned forest), Middle (the lake waters and shores) and Inner band (the defences on the island itself). The Inner band is further divided into 3 rings (White,Yellow and Red), and 8 sectors (North,North-East,East,South-East,South,Southwest,West and North-West).

Finally, in the center of the island is the Main Complex, which varies depending upon whome this fortress belongs to.

Physically, the island has groves of trees, meadows, garden areas, farmers fields and rocky debris fields. The Northwestern end of the island is much higher then the rest of the island and sheer cliffs extend up from the waterline with no beaches.

Weak Spots

As may be obvious, there are a few avenues of attack that the fortress is quite vulnerable to : Teleporting or Flying attackers. Fortifying against such opponents generally requires greater magical ‘special effect’ then I wanted to place in the fortress. If the world in question includes squadrons of magical flying troops, teleport squads, then the GM will also need to add appropriate countermeasures to this fortress. However, this is beyond the scope of this particular sub.

An enemy (with appropriate resources - magic or otherwise) could also attempt to assail the fortress from ‘below’ as well, but the lake does provide a serious obstacle - requiring that any tunnel be dug very deep to avoid the water.

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Gruesome, and the detail is quite good. I will be honest, it needs a better name, when I read Tamperer I thought of some sort of sabotage/spy/espianoge type school of roguery and magic. I would like to see the midwife magic expanded out into it's own submission. For a long time doctors have looked down on midwives, but the midwives have been delivering babies long before doctors in white lab coats.

This one has grown and flowered into something very useful. The life-twisting magics of the school could add a touch of unnatural, blasphemous horror to any campaign...

From out of the tunnel's darkness, the creaures shambled and hopped awkwardly, the horrifying legions of the the enchanter Nekrovan. We had feared that he was a necromancer, able to raise armies of the walking dead.

None of us had suspected the terrible truth: His army was made up of horrors beyond imagining: A legion of twisted travesties of humanity, madness in their oddly-placed eyes and gelatinous ichors dripping from their barbed claws.

A nice addition to the evil magic fields, and perfect to mix things up form the overseen vile necromancer. A few more plot ideas would be good, but the sub itself gave me plenty of ideas as it is, well done!

Link Backs

Freetext

Orcish currency is derived from glass beads. The art of glassworking is well beyond them, but perhaps the orcs have something of value to the civilized races, such as animal pelts, and well made axes, and bows. The humans trade beads for the goods, and the orcs will trade the beads amongst themselves as a form of their own currency. Perhaps they value blood red beads above all others, or animistic orcs favor beads in the colors of their gods.

Inspired by Indian trade beads, some of which could be quite ornate and beautiful. Most North American Indian beads were made in Italy. Surprise!